The land of no refills, no tips & $1 ketchup

Well here we are...
we have been in the Netherlands since Sunday am. The plane ride was...well, miserable! I don't think miserable even cuts it. It was worse than that. We left our house at 4:45 am on Saturday and arrived Sunday at 6:30 am (the Netherlands is 8 hrs ahead of UT). We had all had it. I only had 2 hours of sleep Friday night because even though I started to pack one week prior to this vacation I still was up late preparing and then Glade got up to eat at 3 am and we had to be up at 3:45 am to get ready. Of course having Glade refuse the bottle (he went 13 hrs without eating and I finally gave in) put a loop hole in things and I had to repack for him since he was coming with us and not staying as we had hoped.

There was a lady on the plane sitting next to us who had her two little kids with her. She was traveling alone with them (ages 3 and 10 mos) and going twice as far as us. I felt so bad for her. I was beyond exhausted so I knew she must be totally spent. I tried to entertain her little boy and comfort her little girl when she was dealing with the other one. Sometimes it worked. Others around us were very helpful and understanding.

When we got off the plane it took awhile to get out of the airport and find our tram. Then the tram ride was an hour long and then we had to find the metro to take us to our hotel. We hadn't exchanged any money yet so we didn't have a way to pay for the metro. Jarom left me with all the luggage and a SCREAMING baby for 25 minutes while he tried to find a way to pay. Finally they had pity on us and allowed us to ride for free. We sat on the metro and I began to cry. I was so exhausted and I just thought of that poor lady that was about to board her next plane and I cried for her too.

After eating and sleeping we all felt much better, although Glade is still trying to get used to the time change and wakes up from 1:30-3:00 am each morning. We've discovered so many neat things about the people here, the culture, the land. It's all so interesting to me. Just a few...there are no refills (that's an American thing), most people don't tip here because the servers are paid at least minimum wage, oh and if you want ketchup with your french fries at McDonald's it'll cost you ,60 which is about $1. Needless to say, we will carry around that extra ketchup packet until we use it because we paid $1 for it!

Hah, and one more thing, my taxi driver yesterday looked like Wormtail! What a fun and interesting place!